Ever and Bob were moved closer together after new prisoners were brought in, more demigods who, thankfully, didn't know Ever. Ever leaned closer to Bob, "Bob!" He jumped slightly and leaned down closer to her level so he could hear her. She smiled at him, "Hey Bob, do you remember me?"

Bob's eyebrows drew together in confusion, "I do not remember little girl with wings,"

She winced, noticing for the first time that her wings were visible, "Sorry, I'll meet you in a few years I guess," She saw the confused look on his face and barreled on to avoid explaining, "I have a plan to get us out of here, you, me, and Damasen, maybe some of the demigods as well," He perked up and she could tell he was listening. She smiled to herself, "Now listen…" she told him the plan.

~oOo~

Former-Tom-Riddle walked into the great hall of Hogwarts, feeling like he had just won the Triwizard-tournament. He strolled up to the stool and sat down. He had cast some powerful spells on his memories to keep the sorting hat from recognizing him. The unfortunate result of this, however, as he now had two sets of memories in his head, one locked away and block from the hat, and the other entirely fake.

The hat was placed on his head and he heard its voice for the first time in years, Ahhhh, a truly obvious choice, I'll put you in, "SLYTHERIN" Applause from the table in question as 'Alex' made his way over. He sat down near a group in the middle of the table, all of whom seemed to be really close friends, joking around and whispering into each other's ears.

Now-Alex slid into a seat next to a dark haired boy with a blond girl sitting beside him trying to get him to stop shoveling food into his mouth.

"Hi, I'm Alex," He introduced himself, forcing his face into a friendly smile.

"I'm Percy," Percy said after swallowing an ungodly amount of food, "nice to meet you,"

The girl next to him elbowed him in the ribs for the edge of sarcasm in his voice and gave Alex a friendly smile of her own "I'm Annabeth Chase, This is Percy Jackson," She said gesturing to the boy who had just shoved even more food into his mouth, "And that's Hazel," She said, gesturing to the girl in question. And so on, she introduced the rest of her friends at the Slytherin table, "The rest are in the other houses, and two of them are being sorted privately right now because of…" She glanced at Percy, "...some...unpleasant memories," Alex nodded, his brow furrowed in confusion, what memories could possibly be bad enough to warrant a private sorting?

He didn't have much time to dwell on it however because the headmaster stepped to the front and raised her arms for silence, "Thank you," She said once the chatter had died down, "Now, I would like to introduce our new students…" a middle aged man in a wheelchair, whom Tom had never seen before, whispered something in her ear and she trailed off, "Um, one of the students seems to have had a negative reaction to the sorting, and won't be joining us tonight, you may see him later on in your classes,"

She cleared her throat, "But the other student is fine," She raised a hand to silence the voices that began to speak up around the room, "His name is William Solace and he was sorted, like most of the exchange students, into multiple houses. Out of Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, he chose Slytherin," Tom's eyebrows drew together in confusion, multiple houses? That was unheard of! And 'like the other exchange students'? Who were they?

"We're the exchange students," Percy said, apparently done with his food, "Most of us went through some pretty traumatic stuff during our last war," The haunted look in his and Annabeth's eyes got him feeling just a bit guilty, it was, after all, his fault that there was a wizarding war in the past years. .

"Anyway, the hat didn't seem to like what it saw in our heads, so it sorted us into a bunch of houses and we got to choose. I gotta say, I don't really like this schools method of sorting,"

Tom raised an eyebrow, "And your school is better?"

"As a matter of fact, it does," Percy was cut off by a sharp jab to the ribs from his girlfriend.

"Sorry," Annabeth said, shooting Percy a sharp look, "Our school is super secretive, that's what makes it safe, you won't find any mention of it in any book here or anything like that. It's by invitation-only and usually takes students from a particular family or bloodline, because they are the most likely to already know about the school already," She gave him an apologetic smile.

"But, telling me how you sort students shouldn't jeopardize the safety of your school?"

Annabeth tilted her head to the side, "Hm, yeah, I guess you're right-" She was cut off by a piercing whistle from one of the side doors, in which stood the source, a tan blond guy wearing muggle clothes.

"Exchange students!" He yelled, "It's Nico, he needs us, NOW!" The reaction was immediate. About two dozen kids immediately stood up and rushed out the door while the headmaster was stopped from stopping them by the wheelchair guy. Nico. The name was like a knife in his chest. He knew it was different Nico, his angle couldn't possibly be a student here, it'd be too big a coincidence, too lucky, or unlucky depending on what Nico thought of him now.

Tom found himself standing with the group and was about to get off the bench when Percy put up a hand to stop him, "No," Percy said, "Anyone but us could make it worse," Tom sat back down, not even sure what came over him. He dismissed any further thoughts of his childhood from his mind. He was here to kill Potter, nothing more. There may not be a prophecy this time, but revenge, as they say, is a sweet thing.

His thought were interrupted by the castle trembling.

~oOo~

Will led the demigods down the hall to the hospital wing, where Nicolay filling on one of the beds. Will had cleared all of the nurses relatively easily, leaving only him and the demigods with the unconscious Nico.

"Percy, Annabeth, I need you ready to help me wake him up, you have more experience with these nightmares than the rest of us, Leo, try to keep the castle from collapsing," Leo nodded and took off down the halls just as another tremor hit the castle.

Will turned to the rest of the demigods, "I need the rest of you to try to keep him as still as possible, he could hurt himself and sometimes just stopping the flailing can wake him up," Everyone rushed to their designated task, working as fast as possible.

Will made his way to Nico's side and ran his hand over his hair, "Shhhh," He said quietly, "shhh, Nico, it's okay, you're okay, please wake up," Nico calmed down slightly at the sound of his voice he was still tossing and turning in his sleep, muttering incoherently.

"Nico," Will said, a little louder as the demigods who had been holding him still backed away, "Nico, wake up," Nico's eyes flew open and he bolted upright, eyes wild and breath short.

"Nico, Nico," Will said, getting his attention, "You're safe, it was just a memory," Nico was shaking, trying to hide it, but shaking. Will put his arms around him and dismissed the others with his eyes. They left silently and Nico gave no hint that he knew they were there.

~oOo~

Back in the great hall, the demigods took their seats, whispering amongst themselves in dead languages and ignoring the questioning looks from the wizards. Tom tried to get Percy's attention, "Hey Percy, what happened, who's Nico?"

Percy turned to him, "Nico's a friend of ours, during the sorting the hat goes through your memories, well, his aren't good," Tom nodded, the guilt like a knife in his stomach. The boy may not be his Nico, but his emotions reacted as if he was, a part of his mind insisting that he had hurt his black angel, that he had caused him enough pain to warrant all of the exchange students help to get him out of his own head.

Alex schooled his features into a look of just mild concern while his pulse beat against his chest, something inside him screaming that he had hurt Nico Di Angelo. But he hadn't. He knew that, if Nico was even alive, he would have to be really old, too old to be an exchange student at any rate.

The students were dismissed to their respective dorms and Alex followed the tide to the dungeons, pretending it was his first time in the castle. When they got to the secret entrance the girl next to him said that password and they went in. He put on a false awed expression as he took in the familiar Slytherin common room and made his way to the boys room, finding one of the three empty beds and sitting down, seeing his luggage under the bed, he pulled it out and rummaged through it as if looking for something while he listened to the conversations around him.

The exchange students spoke an odd mix of ancient Greek and latin, something he would have to look into later, and the general gossip of the students proved useless. All they seemed to talk about were the exchanges students, and the attack earlier that year, both things he had been filled in on by Jonny before he came to the school, but hearing about the exchange students from the other students perspective was interesting. He realized he had been rummaging around in his trunk for too long and pulled out a random textbook and flipped through it, pretending to study.

A little while later everyone was in bed. Alex waited a little longer, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 'Nico' kid before he went to sleep, but there was no sign of him or the blond guy. Alex gave up after a little while and went to sleep.

He woke up a few hours later to the sound of heavy breathing and muffled words. He turned toward the sound and saw Percy tossing and turning in his sleep, muttering incoherently. Alex watched, forgetting the proper reaction, which was to see if he was okay, and just watched, listening to the vague sayings and protests coming from the boy's mouth.

The boys' friends managed to get him to wake up after a while, sort of. When one of them, whose name Alex didn't bother to remember, tried to shake his shoulder Percy had snatched her up by the neck and had her pinned to the ground with the nearest weapon, a herbology textbook, poised above her head. Alex absently wondered how he had ended up with that reflex. The girl seemed entirely unconcerned at the notion of having her head bashed in, however, and just lay there and waited for him to realize who she was. Alex was too groggy to wonder how a girl had gotten in the boy's room.

"Oh, sorry Reyna, I'll just, um, go back to sleep now," And so he did, drawing the curtains shut around his bed and presumably attempting to go back to sleep. Alex followed suit, he wasn't here for the exchange students, he would only involve himself in their affairs if it was absolutely necessary in his quest for revenge. Distractions were completely out of the question.

Alex had a dreamless sleep, or, at least, he likes to pretend he did. In reality, his dreams had been filled with images of a little boy in black with a deck of collectors cards in hand and a devilish grin on his face as he laid down his best card, winning the game. In his dream they placed bets, as they had when they were kids, the difference was, when they were kids they beat candy or coins. In his dream, however, they bet their hearts and memories. Nico won. Nico always won.

~oOo~

The next morning Alex woke for his classes, remembering with the rest of the school, that it was Monday. There was a lot of groaning and bit of what sounded like Greek cursing as the Slytherins dragged themselves out of bed and slid themselves into their robes.

Alex was the perfect little student, sort of. He had DADA first, with the exchange student's teacher, whom he had heard in one of the speeches the previous night, would be leaving the school to be replaced with a surprise teacher this morning, so no one had any idea what they were in for. Alex took advantage of this.

When he had been a student he had always found a way to blame someone else for his pranks, like the time he had enchanted all the spare textbooks to start singing nursery rhymes when anyone said the name of their subject in their presence. Or the time he had charmed the Hufflepuff's seeker's broomstick to gain a personality of its own, difficult magic, but well worth it. He smiled at the memory as he watched his nest prank unfold. He had silently transfigured the student next to him rat into a teacup, which was causing a miniature panic attack beside him.

He suppressed a laugh and straightened his robes, pretending to look around for the rat under his bed, where he had stored the teacup, and turning it back into a rat to prevent his house from losing points.

He made his way through the halls, almost forgetting it was supposed to be his first day, and slowing down, pretending to just get with the flow of students while looking around as if curious, maybe not impressed, but as if he were intrigued. He wanted to give off the impression of being hard to impress, that usually got him points with the more popular crowds.

He finally made it to the classroom after a whole load of acting. This was going to a long year. The teacher strode briskly into the classroom. The teacher was a witch he had never seen before wearing emerald green robes and a black pointed hat decorated in black gems. Her light brown hair was loose around her shoulders and her face had an ageless quality to it, making it impossible to tell how old she was.

"Hello," She greeted with a friendly, yet somehow stern, smile, "I'm Professor Winifred Qualra, I will be your new defence against the dark arts teacher, taking the place of Professor Chiron, who must return to his own school due to safety issues he must address," well that was a tame way of putting it, from what Alex had heard, his school was being full on attacked.

"We will start this lesson with some review, so open your textbooks to page 35 but keep your wands ready, we will be practicing these spells later in the lesson…" And so she went on to explain the correct wand movements and pronunciations for several different blocking and attacking spells. Soon she had everyone partnered up, most of the exchange students together, who were using some fancy moments with their wands and footwork to make their spell more powerful and themselves harder to hit.

Alex was paired with Harry, the boy who lived himself.

"Hello, I'm Harry, though I guess you already knew that," Harry introduced himself, rubbing his neck awkwardly, "Um, anyway, I hear your name is Alex, is there anything else you'd like me to call you? Like do you have a nickname or something?"

Tom knew this was his attempt at being polite, but even his presence in the room had the words' Avada Kedavra' creeping to the tip of his tongue. He forced a polite smile and said, " No, just Alex. how are you with this spell?" He asked, knowing full well Potter was a master of it.

"I'm alright, but you've been tortured on this sort of thing for multiple years now, and I had some pretty bad teachers for a couple years, so I bet you're better than I am," Potter said, readying himself to cast the spell. Oh, you have no idea, Tom thought evilly, the killing curse once again in the front of his mind.

Alex blocked Harry's strike easily, pretending to struggle slightly, making his wand movements just a little imperfect, his pronunciation just a little off. Harry, of course, took this as an opportunity to 'help' his fellow student. He proceeded to give Alex a brief demonstration of the wand movements and pronunciation, which, to be fair, was not perfect either.

Alex grit his teeth in a smile and thanked Harry, sending the spell at him this time, absolutely perfect. Harry just barely managed to dodge to spell with a fairly sloppy version of the spell he had just demonstrated for Alex. Tom couldn't help the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips.

Just then the door swung open, hardly making a sound, but drawing the attention of the entire class. The blond from earlier, Will was his name? Stood in the open doorway, stunned by the sudden attention, before shuffling, with all eyes on him, to the front of the class to talk to the teacher.

"Professor Qualra?" He asked and she nodded, "I'm William Solace, I've been given permission from the headmaster to stay with my patient for the rest of the day to see to his full recovery, nor Nico will be joining you for the rest of the day,"

The professor watched him with an amused look on her face and waited patiently for him to finish his statement, "Alright then, if you must. Though, I have to ask, how did you come to be his doctor at such a young age?"

Instead of blushing or shying away from her like Tom expected him to do, he straightened his stance and almost subconsciously assumed to position of a soldier, "Our school provide very advanced classes on muggle and magical medicine, both of which I accede at further than most muggle heart surgeon or wizard doctors of any kind. Nico is specifically my patient because I am the only one who can get him to go through with any kind of treatment,"

That amused look hadn't left the professor's face but there was a hint of respect behind her eyes as well as she said, "And, may I ask, why is that?"

"Because I am one of the few who isn't afraid of him."

The amused look fell away to confusion, "Why would anyone fear a child?"

Will laughed bitterly, "Ask Harry Potter," all eyes shifted to Harry and she shrank back, turning bright red. Will left the room without another word.

~oOo~

Nico sat up in the hospital bed, looking over to see Will, sleeping in a lump on a chair next to his bed. Nico rolled his eyes, secretly loving the gesture and swung his leg silently over the edge of the bed. He slid his feet into his shoes and found his sword belt under the bed. He wasn't sure why it was there, considering he usually disguised his sword as a wring to keep up his cover, but he did occasionally find the belt in the most random places.

He decided just to leave it, assuming it would disappear to hang out in his cabin or something after a little while, and padded down the halls. He made it to the Slytherin dormitories and snuck in, using the password he had heard a Slytherin girl tell Will when they thought he had been sleeping.

He found a set of black and green trunks with a three-headed dog painted on the top of each and assumed it was his, because the godly side of his family was real subtle.

He rolled his eyes and searched through his things, trying to find a weapon other than his sword to use, maybe a knife or a magically silenced gun or something other than his usual weapon. He didn't know why the sudden sentiment, but if he killed his childhood crush with that sword he would feel like a murderer. He would never be able to use his prized weapon again. Not without this kill, this one little favor to his father, tugging at the back of his mind.

Relief flooded his veins as his fingers closed around the hilt of a silver dagger. He pulled it out just a little to examine the blade, to check if it was long enough for a clean kill and sharp enough to make it quick. As soon as he verified that, yes, it was both of those things, he shoved it under the pile of unnecessary clothes and went through the rest of the trunks.

He had just finished with the last of the largest trunks, all of which were filled with useless trinkets that the gods seemed to think a normal teenage boy would have, like clothes. Way. Too. Many. Cloths. He opened the last and smallest trunk, hoping his dad had put the useful stuff in the smallest one.

On top was a watch, just a plain bronze wrist watch with a black leather strap, which he put on for no real reason other than he thought it looked pretty good. Under that was a Slytherin scarf, which he tossed aside with a snort and turned back the trunk. He froze.

There, at the very bottom of the very smallest of the cases was a deck of Mythomagic cards. Dulux edition with silver and gold edges, still in the original packaging. He peeled off the plastic wrap and shuffled through the deck, reciting the stats of each card in his head as he went. He heard someone moan and roll over in their sleep and he shoved the cards in his pocket, stuffing everything back into the cases and vanishing behind the bed before the sleeping student could settle back into their bed.

He snuck past the beds, peeking into each one to get a gage where everyone was, he hesitated slightly when he came across Tom/Alex's bed. He looked so innocent when he slept. When he slept, he wasn't a killer. Nico shook the thought from his head and made it to the Slytherin common room, where Will stood waiting.

His doctor had a stern look on his face, arms crossed, stance wide. Nico was in trouble. Nico decided to go with his usual method of surviving Will, try to ignore him.

"Nico," Will started but Nico just glared at him and plopped down on one of the couches, "Nico, I need you to listen to me. I told you to get your rest, it's not healthy for you to go running off like this all the time!"

"Not now Will," Nico mumbled, but Will must have heard something in his tone because he stopped the lecture and sat down next to Nico, careful not to touch him.

"Nico, what's wrong," Will tone was gentle, his eyes soft, as he tentatively touched a hand to Nico's shoulder. When he didn't pull away Will pulled him into a hug and cuddled with him on the couch until Nico spoke up.

"I can't do it Will," He said numbly, "I can't do it,"

The pain in Nico's eyes broke something in Will. No one, no one, should have to endure that kind of torture. No one should have to suffer like Nico did. No one should have to be so far beyond help like Nico.

And idea entered Will's head, it made him sick to think about, but it could help, it could take away some of the pain from Nico's eyes.

"I could do it for you," Will forced out, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Nico looked up at him, startled, "But...it's my quest? It's my job?" They were questions, not statements.

"Look, Nico, I doubt your father cares who does it, as long as it gets done. And I can't have you doing this to yourself, you'll kill yourself just trying to work up the nerve," Will gulped, "But I don't know him, it would be easy for me, or, at least, easier,"

Nico was trembling slightly in Will's arms, "I-I can't-I can't let you...I can't let you do that. Please Will, Please, I can, I will, just give me time-"

"No," Will was surprised at the certainty in his own voice, "No," he repeated, "I won't let you kill yourself over this,"

Nico wouldn't meet his eyes, "It's a direct order, Will. A clear, direct order," Nico forced his limbs to stop trembling, "I have to, I can't disobey my father like that, you don't know," He sucked in a shuddering breath, "You don't know what he'll do, Will, if he cares enough about his family's opinion to make me do this, even when he knows about...my past...he'll have to punish me. He'll punish me for not doing as I'm told, and you don't want to know what he can do, what his wife will do," He closed his eyes, "I just can't let you Will,"

Will nodded with a pained look in his eyes, "Okay Nico, but I can help, he didn't say you had to do it alone did he?"

Nico looked up at him, not sure if his offer would make things better or worse, "Thanks, Will," He said reluctantly. Little did Nico know, the time for him to complete his task was much shorter than either of them thought.

Hey y'all, sorry for the wait. I just got back from va-ca so I hope you can forgive me. Please leave a review with your guesses about Ever's braids, or really any prediction, suggestion, correction, so on and so forth. I'm tired, I did only have a few hours of sleep after a two and a half hour plane ride yesterday, and that's not even mentioning the sheer amount of hassling it took to get through all the security to get off the ship, then on the plane, then we had to split up our group of eight into groups of four so we could take ubers over to some random mall near Fort Lauderdale, where the ship landed (the ship, by the way, is the Harmony of the seas, the biggest sailing cuise ship at this point in time).

Anywho, the vacation was fun, despite the inconvenience afterward and the shock of cold I got when I got home, like HOLY FRICK IT IS COLD! Just yesterday I was in Florida, enjoying the sunny eighty-degree weather and now I'm shivering under six blankets and posting the fanfic chapter I finished before my dad confiscated my computer, thinking that I was going on it instead of sleeping. It was vacation. My dad is an idiot.

My question for you guys is have you ever gone on vacation? If so, to where and how long ago. This was my first vacation ever, so I'm open to your stories (beware, anything you say may inspire ideas for my book)